Busy Mee's Last Leg

debtfreeoneday

I haven't been in here before, so hello!  Well done on being mortgage neutral - huge achievement.  Will subscribe to follow!

Busy_Mee

Morning everyone and hello to Brindlebabe, Julicorn and Debtfreeoneday. Lovely to hear from you.

 I hope everyone is enjoying the gorgeous weather. I think this is the last day today before it gets cooler again so I intend to make the most of it.

So, another week in lockdown, and work has been foul....lots of people are tired and emotional and I am finding it exhausting being the "grown up".

The high point of every day has been my morning walk with the pup. The weather has been fantastic and I have enjoyed the early morning peace of listening to the birds sing.There are so many wild flowers out at the moment. One of the fields we walk through is full of buttercups and yesterday I just sat down amidst the sea of yellow to just "be".  The dog was looking at me as if I was mad 

I have done quite a lot of money shuffling this week. I have opened two new regular savers with HSBC following my kick up the bum from Suffolk Lass. I will open another FD one for me this week and one for Mr Mee and a joint M&S one when the current accounts mature. That will mean £1350 per month cycling from the mortgage offset account through regular savers at 2.75%. Oo and I also have the principality regular saver of £125 per month being fed by the odds and sods account. This also pays 2.75%.

I have opened a Marcus 1 year fixed rate savings account @ 1.45% for Mr Mee and deposited £40k in there. This should pay £583.87 in interest, which along with the regular saver interest brings Mr Mee just under his Personal Savings Allowance of £1000. The regular savers will keep me below my PSA of £500.

I need to open an ISA each to deposit 20 K each. The best option is looking like Ford Money @1.25% for a 1 year fix ...pretty rubbish but we need to use the tax free wrapper. This will pay us £251.44 each in interest.

 All in all, including our existing cash ISA savings we will receive approx £2800 in interest for the year, which is not to be sniffed at. This is of course offset by the 0.79% we are currently paying on the mortgage, but we are still in profit. I have stuck to very safe options given the current situation because I can't gamble with the mortgage money

I also have a small S&S ISA and the SIPP I started last year and I will deposit a further £12 k into the SIPP to get the tax relief. 

Life in lockdown continues to involve a lot of eating. I made fakeaway  N@ndos and sausage and egg Mc Muffins last weekend. Both were really good. The spicy rice recipe for the N@ndos was particularly nice and I would definitely repeat. The sausage and egg McMuffins were also a hit, but I think the sausage meat I used was probably too good quality, a cheaper sausage would be more authentic 

Yesterday I made a fruit cake and had a nice cheese board lunch for VE Day and we had a BBQ  at teatime.  I am planning a Greek night tonight, with Moussaka, but I am running out of ideas for things to do now.

I need to go to Sainsbreeze for some shopping today and then I intend to get in the garden. I have been collecting plastic meat and veg trays and now have enough to sow my seeds and I have some other planting and tidying to do.

Hope you all have a lovely day x

try_harder

£2800 ,!! That is definitely not to be sniffed at ,Well done there Busy Mee !

Busy_Mee

A quick pop in to say I have finally got a refund on the holiday we should have gone on 1 April 
I will put this cash back into the holiday fund for now, and will decide what to do with it later. It looks like we wont be going on holiday any time soon and I suspect we will be getting further refunds on the holidays we have booked for later in the year.

 We want to replace the wood on our deck with outdoor tiles, so we can divert the money to pay for that. We use the deck as another room in the Summer and the wood is looking really scruffy. Given we will be spending a lot of time at home this year, it will be money well spent I think. I might also throw some more cash at the mortgage

I managed to get all my planting done on Saturday, raspberry canes, courgettes and some heathers. I also sowed lots of flower seeds in my recycled food trays. The sun was so hot I burnt my shoulders, but then at about 9 pm we had the most terrific thunderstorm, followed by torrential rain.

There was also lots of cooking done. The moussaka  on Saturday  was lovely and there was enough left for two lunch portions for DD.  I made banana, honey and almond muffins to use up some over ripe bananas, and a chocolate fudge traybake for pudding after our roast dinner on Sunday.

As the weather wasn't very good yesterday, I did my "money laundering" as Mr Mee calls it. A regular saver with FD opened, and two ISAs with Ford Money. All spreadsheets duly updated 

Back to work this morning, and I managed to sort out the issue that has been on my mind all weekend, so feeling a great sense of relief.

Have a great week x

themadvix

Glad you got the work issue sorted, that must have been annoying over a long weekend!

 It sounds like you were very productive though!

shangaijimmy

'Money laundering' - I love that phrase.

Sounds like you've been busy enough, and some excellent progress made.

South_coast

Loving the idea of money laundering over here too 😂!

beanielou

Good news on the refund 

teapot2

I like the idea of outdoor tiles Busy Mee, my decking is getting very rough looking and some bits are rotten.  I wonder how it would compare price wise to replace it with tiles.  The decking is also slippery when wet or in the winter,  Previous owners installed it and its not something I'd choose again particularly right outside the back door ;(

Suffolk_lass

Ooh, outdoor tiles! what sort of thing are you thinking of? We have a self-laid (both of us) patio with three different sizes of paving slab and I find the bits growing between quite annoying. I can see how tiles you can hose and mop down might look rather lovely - not here though. I am far too slovenly to keep them looking nice enough. Glad you resolved that work thing. It can be so emotionally draining, carrying these things round on your back like the proverbial monkey!

Still chuckling at the money laundering